


Book Club

by at_a_loss



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - High School, Harry is still winning, Harry is winning and Draco is pouting, M/M, Then there's a math competition, There's a reading competition
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-25 19:20:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15647283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/at_a_loss/pseuds/at_a_loss
Summary: Draco has been competing with Harry for as long as he can remember. They've got something of a feud going on, although Harry doesn't really know about it. But honors classes are pretty small, and the boys were bound to engage eventually. When Draco realizes that a crush is now underlying his obsession with Harry, he doesn't know how to react.





	1. Chapter 1

Not again. That was the second time in a row that Potter had beaten him. And by 200 pages, too. Dismayed, Draco looked again at his own name and the number next to it: 1467. It wasn’t so much, after all.

However, Draco had been distracted. There had been many family reunions of late, and his father expected him present at every one. Of course, Draco usually ended up sitting on an errant couch with a book in his hand in these scenarios. Which meant that he was getting the most reading in. And therefore this was not the root of his problem. If that was the case, then Draco lost this month’s reading competition because he was _lazy._

“Congratulations, Harry! As the winner of this month’s reading competition, you may choose your prize,” their teacher said with a wide grin.

Harry sat in his seat, looking fully pleased with himself. He searched the classroom with his eyes until he spotted Draco and stuck out his tongue.

 _Gloat all you want, Potter. I’ll be winning before you know it._ Draco thought at the boy who was now pointing to a strange rainbow toy. Potter’s glee was evident from across the room. Draco was already planning ahead, recalling books he could try out this month.

_The Hunger Games, Gone, A Series of Unfortunate Events-- wait I already read those, The Hobbit. Damn it all to hell. Harry Potter will always win, he always does, and it seems like the bastard doesn’t even try._

The room broke out into a frenzy as everyone tried to press close to Harry and get a look at his newest toy.

“Wow, it’s a Pinky Pincher! Bill’s friend had one of those!” A red-haired boy shouted gleefully. Instead of looking horrified and covering his violated ears, Harry beamed.

“What does it do? I just thought it looked cool,” Harry said.

“You see, you turn this lever here to activate the powder, and it makes you feel like you’ve been pinched! It’s very light, but it’s quite funny,” the boy explained, looking pleased at the fact that Harry had spoken to him.

Draco snarled.

He would win next time. He’d make sure of it.  
\---  
A few years passed, in which time Harry and Draco had moved on to middle school and no longer had reading competitions. In fact, reading was looked down upon. The new competition was a lot more harrowing.

“Hey, mate, good morning,” Crabbe said as he set his things beside Draco.

“Morning, Crabbe,” Draco replied as he looked up from his revision. They had a quiz when the bell rang, and Draco took advantage of his arriving five minutes early. He’d neglected studying on this one, but a few minutes were all he needed to root out the flesh of the lesson.

When the bell rang, Draco put away his notebook and took out a pencil. He knew the drill. “You ready, mate?” Draco shot Crabbe a smirk.

Crabbe just chuckled at him and took out a sorry excuse for a writing utensil.

“Good morning, everyone. I hope you all are ready for this quiz. I will be handing it out now, so please take out a pencil,” their teacher said.

Draco smiled to himself as he watched his peers rummage for their respective pencils, tapping his own against his chin.

“You have 15 minutes. Begin,” she called.

Draco began.

 _Which rivers border Mesopotamia?_ Smirking, Draco filled out his answers with ease. He had succeeded in his cramming: he was confident he was answering them all right.

Draco was the first to submit his completed test in the bin. A few students looked up at him in awe. He swelled in pride, but pretended he hadn’t noticed. By the time he sat back at his seat, his moment was over.

Draco had always enjoyed a good dose of academic pride.

It lifted him through a drab lunch and a dull English lesson, but not even the impending 100% could help him through math.

Draco was just so horrible at math. Often, he wasn’t thinking about it, too busy furthering his skills in basically every other subject on the planet. Yet, Draco couldn’t help but glare at the offending whiteboard that had meaningless mathematical scribbles all over it. Or at least Draco couldn’t make any meaning out of them.

It didn’t help that Potter was in this class, and he was still disgustingly genius. Harry appeared to be a natural at everything he tried. Reading, soccer, even math. And he was cool. No, only Draco could have a scholastic downfall. Plus, he had braces, and that certainly didn’t seem cool to him. 

This was the competition he was losing now. The one that involved _everything_ to do with being a human being. It was obvious that Draco was simply the worst possible person, and should consider maybe not being so _fucking horrible._

Anyway, Draco had a C in this class, and he was fucking stressed.

Potter raised his hand. “Does that make x equal to three-eights?”

 

“On the dot. Good job, Harry,” Mrs. McGonagall said.

Draco thought that McGonagall was really sweet, so he couldn’t be too mad at her for validating that moron’s brains. Okay, maybe moron was too strong a word.

Then he saw Granger whispering at Potter about some math thing, and he scowled. Moron was fine.

The next day past much the same way. Draco got full marks as he’d predicted, and it encouraged him to spend the weekend studying for his next test.

He was sitting in his room one day when the door opened and his mom walked inside.

“Hi, honey. How are you doing?” Narcissa asked with a kind smile. Draco quickly switched tabs.

“I’m good mom, just studying,” he responded with a shrug.

His mom nodded. “I’ve noticed you’ve been getting really good grades recently, Draco. I am so proud of you,” she said.

Draco flushed, embarrassed that she was praising him when he was actually watching youtube videos. “Thanks,” he said.

“Do you want to go to The Usual? I heard that there’s a new frozen yogurt place,” she said, sitting down next to Draco. Draco typed a few words out uncomfortably. To seem like he was being productive, and all.

“Yeah, sure. Let me just finish this and I’ll get ready,” Draco said. Really, he just wanted to see the Gangnam Style music video once again.

His mom left, and the Korean music video played out once more.

In the car, Draco was happy enough fantasizing about what flavor he’d choose, but his smile fell when he caught sight of Harry Potter in the shop.

“What are you getting, Draco?” His father asked him impatiently. Draco hadn’t been paying attention. Since they’d walked in, he’d been watching Harry lick his spoon. The boy still hadn’t noticed Draco’s presence, too busy laughing at something Ron was saying. They’d been inseparable since the incident with the Pinky Pincher.

“Oh, the mint and chip, I guess,” Draco said automatically. He knew himself well enough that he had preconceived answers for everything, at this point. It was quite often that he’d be too distracted to respond in a timely and deliberate fashion. It was altogether much simpler to have a default response.

Draco coaxed his parents to sit outside with some bullcrap about the weather being nice. Somehow, Potter still hadn’t noticed Draco. Draco figured it was better that way. It made it easier for him to avoid Harry, which was the goal, of course.

As his parents made his way for the door, Draco beelined for the bathroom. Best to have frozen yogurt on an empty bladder. He made his way outside and found his parents at a table with two chairs. Lucius and Narcissa were sitting on them.

Draco pulled up a chair from a nearby table and sat down. He remembered Harry, and looked through the window to see that he still hadn’t noticed Draco. Good. Draco was safe outside, now. He was still thinking about it when he finished his frozen yogurt.

As Draco was discussing some TV shows with his mom, Harry walked out of the shop. He looked straight at Draco and, for some unfathomable reason, smiled at him. Draco cursed every deity known to man when he hesitantly waved back. Before he could do anything else, Potter was already focused on Ron again. The two of them were walking away.

“Who was that?” his mom asked, nodding her dual toned hair at Harry’s receding form.

“Just some guy from my math class,” Draco said in what he hoped was a flippant manner.

“I like him. He opened the door for me,” she said. She seemed serious, too. Even his mom thought Harry was perfect.

“He’s not that great. I beat him in reading, once,” Draco said with a pout.

That night, Draco went to sleep wondering if Harry would acknowledge him again tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, they start out about 11, and then they're 13/14.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's no real difference between a good rivalry and some steamy sexual tension, is there? (Except they're 14, so maybe not sexual tension exactly. (SOON))
> 
> Also, I just want to say thank you to everyone for reading! I've never let myself go this much when writing a fic. This is the first one that I actually feel connected to and want to see through to its end.

Draco had thoroughly enjoyed his finals. He had absolutely fucked up his sleep schedule, but it had payed off. His high marks on his final exam in math pushed him to a B. It still annoyed Draco to see his stream of A’s interrupted by the inferior letter, but he was proud nonetheless.

The new semester meant a change in the seating arrangements.

 _Not Potter, please. Anyone but Potter._ Draco chanted as he opened the door to the classroom.

The projector was on, and the new seating chart shone on the whiteboard. Draco searched for his name.

The first thing Draco did when he saw his name was intently make sure Potter wasn’t sitting next to him.

Luckily for Draco, he wasn’t. No, that would be too merciful of the natural world.

Harry was sitting _in front of him._

Draco inwardly groaned and trudged off to his assigned seat. Not a single bone in his body felt ready to face an entire semester behind the kiss-up.

Harry arrived a few minutes later with the bell. After a cursory glance at the board, he rushed to his seat and quickly took out his materials.

“Hello, Draco,” Harry said. He didn’t seem like he was inviting further conversation, so Draco didn’t bother saying hi back.

Despite their rather tepid original greeting, Harry and Draco got along like a house on fire. Over the next few weeks, the boys interacted rather more than expected.

“Dude, I really don’t get how an inequality can be graphed,” Draco said. He just couldn’t shade his graphs the right way for the life of him.

“You just have to think of the sign in terms of the axes,” Harry said, and set his pencil to paper. He sketched out a quick diagram and pointed to the negative x-axis. “See, the value is smaller when you move left, so you shade that way for less than.”

Draco nodded. That had been one of his most troublesome confusions nearing the end of last semester, but it seemed suddenly simple when Potter explained it.

At first, the boys did their own work respectively. Draco had paid more attention than ever. His doodling days were gone, because now Harry was next to him. And he needed to impress Harry. Or, erm, beat him.

Yet Draco soon realized that he was still hopeless, and he was missing some key fundamental skills. Like graphing inequalities. His teacher was no help, she just told him to get a tutor.

As if. Draco thought about how he would pose the suggestion to his father, and shivered. He’d likely say something along the lines of _‘Don’t be silly, Draco, you’re smart enough to figure it out on your own.’_

However, things had changed when Harry turned around once to ask Draco a question.

“What did she say? I got lost after the first step, and then I wasn’t paying attention,” Harry said, looking an entire nervous wreck. Draco took pity on him, really. He probably wasn’t used to being out of the loop, as Harry always seemed to be in the thick of things.

“She said that you can’t factor, you have to use the quadratic formula,” Draco explained calmly. A bit of glee rose up in him. _Haha, I know something Potter doesn’t._

“Right. Erm, what’s the quadratic formula, again?” Harry scratched embarrassedly at his nose.

“What, Potter, too busy wanking last night to do your homework?” Draco laughed.

Harry turned a little pink and smiled at Draco. He was thinking that Draco was actually quite funny, and he would have fun sitting next to him. “If you must know, yes. It’s the most pressing of my nightly chores,” Harry said. He enjoyed the strange course the conversation had taken.

Draco was grinning, but then he looked down for a moment to scribble something on the corner of his notebook. He ripped the piece off and handed it to Harry. “Here you go. X equals negative B plus or minus rad B-squared minus four AC, all over 2A.”

“Come again, mate? You can’t be serious,” Harry said, glancing down at the piece of paper. Looking at it made a bit more sense. But it was really long, and would probably be a pain in the ass to memorize accurately.

“Sorry, ol’ sport,” Draco replied. He didn’t seem sorry at all. In fact, he seemed rather delighted with Harry’s reaction.

If that’s how it was gonna be then, Harry was going to tease Draco right back. “Don’t worry about me, Gatsby. I’ll have this thing down by tomorrow. Maybe I’ll even cut back on the masturbation to give myself proper study time,” Harry said. He was quite pleased with himself when Draco choked on his mouthful of water.  
\---  
The school dance was coming up. Draco couldn’t avoid it: it was everywhere. The lockers were papered with humongous signs with garish colors that spelled out things like _‘Dance on May 6th!’_ and _‘Tickets available at the student store”._ Draco’s personal least favorite was _‘Do YOU have a date to the dance?’_ It was frankly insulting.

Scratch that, Draco’s least favorite dance advert was his mother.

“Draco, look at what I picked out for you to wear! Isn’t it darling?” Narcissa said as she banged on the door.

Draco, frightened, fell out of his bed. He stood up and pulled his shirt straight before walking across the room to observe the clothing his mother had chosen. He was trying very hard not to look like he had been thinking about Harry and his modified wank schedule for today.

Draco opened the door with a groan. “Mom, the dance isn’t for two whole months,” Draco said petulantly.

“I know Draco, but tickets are on sale now, so I was thinking about it and all. Here,” his mother handed him the pile of clothes and gave him a kiss on the forehead. “Try it on and come out to show me. I’ll be in the sitting room.” Narcissa walked away, and Draco took off his shirt with a sigh. So long for choosing something that actually looked cool. Draco had no doubt that his mother would dress him to the nines.

Draco looked at himself in the mirror a few minutes later, outfit assembled. He was wearing fitted gray dress pants that seemed freshly pressed. The suit jacket matched, but the dress shirt he wore underneath was black and silky. Draco admired the way the ensemble fitted, but he looked at his tie with a certain amount of distress. It was yellow. Draco had hoped for green, or blue at the worst. Yellow was downright garish.

Such is the life of a budding teen. Draco put on the unfavorable tie his mom had chosen for him and grimaced. Draco promised himself that when he was old enough to buy his own clothes, he’d never buy anything _yellow._

He walked downstairs to see his mom looking up from her laptop to beam at her son.

“Look at you! All dapper. You’re going to turn so many heads,” Narcissa cooed at her little boy.

“Stop it mom,” Draco said, yet he indulged her request to turn around so she could see how the suit fit in the back.

“So, Draco, have you asked anyone to the dance?” his mom said with no small amount of anticipation. She smiled triumphantly when she saw Draco’s face turn scarlet. Draco cursed his transparent skin.

“No, mom. I’m not interested in asking anyone,” Draco said. He felt uncomfortable, and wanted to escape back to his room.

After a few more minutes of awkward conversation about how Draco was not interested in dating any of the fools at school, Draco was finally back in his room with the door shut.

A horrible thought flitted through his head.

What if I asked Potter?  
\---  
The day of the dance was fast approaching, and Draco still had no date. As far as he knew, Harry didn’t either, though Draco didn’t exactly bother to ask him. It was probably too suspicious for him to do so, and besides, he always forgot to bring it up after he sat down and he and Harry started some conversation about food or drawing dicks.

Yet the dance was coming up this weekend, and Draco found it safe enough to broach the topic.

“So, Harry, you going to the dance this weekend?” Draco asked as nonchalantly as possible, looking at Harry over his fingernail inspection.

“Oh, yeah, I suppose so. I’m a rotten dancer, though,” Harry said, motioning to his knobbly knees.

“Ah, I see. I’m actually an incredible dancer, so prepare to be awed,” Draco cautiously furthered the talk from _school dance_ to _school dance with me present._

Harry chuckled. “I look forward to it. Although my mom wanted to volunteer for some unfathomable reason, so I’ll probably be hiding in the bathroom half the time.”

Draco slapped Harry on the shoulder and cracked a joke about being a momma’s boy.

Thank god his own mother didn’t sign up to torment him.  
\---  
Draco had spoken too soon.

The day of the dance finally came. Draco dressed in his well-fitted suit and the offending tie and gelled his hair back. Officially ready to go, Draco met his mother in the kitchen, who cooed at him and grabbed for her keys. She was wearing a periwinkle wrap top with a high waisted skirt that went to her mid calves. Draco looked at his mother’s nice outfit with suspicion, but assumed she just wanted to take a picture with him. Sure enough, she handed her phone to Lucius, who just walked in the kitchen and demanded he capture a photo of her with her son ‘done up so nicely’.

Lucius gave his son a curt approving nod for going along with his mother’s whims without complaint, which Narcissa took as approval for her clothing selection and the beauty that was her son. Draco and his mother left soon thereafter.

He had thought his mother was going to drop him off in front of the school like everyone else’s parents, so he was rightfully alarmed when he noticed that his mom was driving into the parking lot.

“Where are you going, mom? You don’t have to park to drop me off,” Draco said, trying to contain his slight panic.

“Oh, Draco, I volunteered to help out! I want to be more involved,” his mom said as she shifted the gear to park and stepped out of the car as though she had said something perfectly normal.

Draco’s jaw was very close to meeting his neck. That explains the outfit.

This was a _nightmare._

As they neared the entrance to the hall where the dance was being hosted, Draco made up some excuse about needing to use the restroom and ducked behind a wall. There was no way he was going to walk in there next to him mom.

Draco was counting out his third minute when he saw Harry. A tall red-haired woman was talking to him with a hand on his shoulder. They had the same eyes.

 _That must be his mom._ When the pair disappeared through the doors, Draco counted out his last minute and walked in.

The hall was unrecognizable. Draco knew it well from the weekly Zumba that his physical education teacher put him through. Yet only the gleaming wood panelled flooring and the high windows facing the field left any indication of the room’s original state.

The walls were decked out with streamers, banners, and balloons. Most of these were either purple or silver, the school colors, but there was an occasional blue one for some reason. The windows were lined with tables laden in food, behind which Draco saw his mom serving a short kid he faintly recognized. That was when Draco noticed that his and Harry’s mom were standing next to each other, serving sprite and cola respectively. And they were chatting up a storm.

Draco groaned. The last thing he needed was his and his crush’s mom hitting it off.

Wait- _crush?_ Draco sighed. There was really nothing for it. He couldn’t even deny it convincingly enough to himself. He looked over and saw Potter with Weasley and Granger and sighed.

Harry was wearing a black dress shirt much like Draco’s own, yet, very unlike Draco, had opted for a pair of salmon colored trousers. It would have been an atrocious crime to fashion if not for the fact that Harry was so beautiful, he could pull off a fucking potato sack better than Marilyn Monroe. Harry’s pinky-white skin matched his otherwise garish pants and gleamed in contrast with his black top, making it impossible for Draco to look away.

A rich blue tie ran down Harry’s lean chest. Draco gulped. Realized he was just standing around staring at Harry like a lunatic, Draco went off to find Crabbe or Goyle or _someone._

Later on, when the dance was in full swing, and after Draco had allowed his mother to smother him in gratuitous amounts of sprite and pride (she was telling Lily Potter all about Draco’s fantastic marks in school, and they were bonding over their Gifted Children™), Draco finally let himself look at Harry again. 

The boy in question was now sans tie, and a few of his buttons were retired of their duties as well. Condensation had collected in his now exposed collar bones, and they glistened under the flashing lights. The blond wanted to taste Harry’s sweaty skin.

That was that.

“Goyle, I’m going to check out the photo booth.” Draco was certainly planning to check something out, but it wasn’t a photo booth. (Unless this went well and Potter was overcome with an insatiable desire to pull Draco into the photo booth and devour his saliva.) Draco shook the fantasy out of his head, and tried to convince himself he wasn’t walking toward his impending doom. He and Potter had been getting close, after all, and wasn’t the whole point of middle school coolness getting anyone you wanted?

Draco tried to ignore the voice in his head that told him he had basically loathed Potter until just a few months ago. Potter was now hot, (Draco took a heady look at the boy’s newfound jawline) and he was funny, so that basically ticked off all his boxes.

It was too late to change his mind. He had already trapped Harry, who had just excused himself from his friends to find something cool to drink.

“Hey there, Harry,” Draco said, looking, in his humble opinion, fine as fuck. He gave his hair a little swipe.

“Oh, hello there, Draco,” Harry greeted. “So you’re here to show off your alleged incredible dancing skills, is that right?” Harry cocked his head with a faint smile. Draco wanted to kiss his happy little mouth.

“Naturally. Here, put your hands in mine.” Spindly pale fingers reached for Harry’s own. Harry obeyed. They both pretended not to notice the other’s sweaty palms.

With Harry firmly in his grasp, Draco began to move. An upbeat pop song was blaring, trust a middle school DJ to just sit back and let the top 40 hits play, so Draco pulled Harry along jauntily as he gracefully moved to the beat.

“You really are horrible at this, Potter,” Draco said when Harry tripped during the chorus.

“Yeah well you’re horrible at math,” Harry quipped back.

“Watch it, Potty, I did better on the factoring quiz,” Draco answered, despite the fact that Harry was right, and was definitely far better at math than he.

“I suppose I’ll just have to beat you on the next one to put you in your place, Harry said as he tripped again.

Draco laughed at the boy’s clumsiness. Harry frowned. _Cute._ Right, well.

“Do you want to go out with me sometime?” Draco asked. Potter mirrored him when he stopped moving.

“Oh, erm. Well. I’m really sorry about this, Draco, but you see, um. I just don’t feel like I’m ready for any of, um, that. I’m so sorry. Draco, really-” Harry rambled on. He was so flustered that Draco was sure he’d just keep running his mouth unless he interrupted him.

“It’s fine, Harry,” Draco said. He let Potter’s hands go and walked briskly away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aww.

**Author's Note:**

> Narcissa is mom goals


End file.
